


We can only do our best to recreate

by CalIsInTheLibrary (Allspark5101)



Series: Guess I'm gonna have to fix series 12, huh? [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Congratulations!, Episode AU: s12e1-2 Spyfall, F/M, Im just. A single bi. And theyre both very attractive. Thats all., Lit rally just want to explore their dynamic more, This isnt really thoschei atm but i might come back to it, You made it worse!, also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22308352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allspark5101/pseuds/CalIsInTheLibrary
Summary: What if the Doctor had discovered who O really was before the events of Spyfall? (Aka me trying to avoid the end of the Paris scene led to this)
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Guess I'm gonna have to fix series 12, huh? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632574
Comments: 6
Kudos: 130





	We can only do our best to recreate

It had all started out with a simple accident. The fam were at home, recovering from their latest excursion to a spa world (not Midnight, never Midnight, never somewhere she'd already been), and she had decided to catch up with an old friend.

Well. Sort of. Texting counts, right?

They had been chatting, laughing together, having fun, and the Doctor felt lighter than she had ever felt since before the cybership, before Missy and the Master and Bill - and she tripped. She didn't know what over. Early ish days, the weight distribution was something she was still getting used to even a few months on. But O reached out to steady her with a hand that was far too cold for a human, and with shields far too sophisticated for a human, no matter how well trained they were. But his mind was still the same, and she would recognize its brush against hers even after a hundred thousand years of separation.

It was him.

The Master.

And he knew that she knew.

* * *

She had always been so much faster than him, but the reveal, the shocked recoil of his mind from hers as he shut down any surface level thoughts left her scrambled, and his grip on her arm turned to iron before she could even think to wrench her wrist away.

“You,” he hissed, “weren’t supposed to see that.”

She twisted her arm in his grip, the bare skin exposed to his touch tingling. She didn’t really like physical contact this time round, avoiding hugs and casual touches with an ease her previous face would’ve envied if he actually meant any of the things he’d said.

But this was more than that.

As a race of touch telepaths, Time Lords tried to avoid contact as much as they could, showing their affection - if they had any to show, that is - in smaller, more meaningful ways.

She could feel his racing hearts, his racing thoughts, flickering under the surface, as he could no doubt feel her wild tangle of betrayalshockhorrorheartbreak _he’sallivewhyishehere._

She bared her teeth in a mock snarl, forcing her mind to calm as he returned her feral grin with one of his own.

“How long.” she spat at him.

He shrugged in mock confusion, a soft frown adorning his face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“How long have you been _lying to my face you-”_

He gave a mock gasp, pulling his face into an exaggerated pout. “My dear Doctor, is that any way to talk to your best friend?” He grinned then, glancing down at the hand he still had clasped around her wrist. “Or any way to think of him, for that matter?”

Giving up on her hand as a lost cause, she brought her other arm arcing through the air to jab at a particularly sensitive cluster of nerves near his neck. He caught her hand with a carefree laugh, looking up - no, that’s new, it’s down now - at her with deceptively innocent brown eyes.

“Now,” he hummed as she struggled in his grip, “we can’t have any of that, can we?”

“Whatever you’re doing, I will find a way to stop you.” and just like that, her laser focus was back, hazel eyes furious and glaring. He took a half step backwards in mock horror, unbalancing her just so.

“Why would I be doing anything? Can’t I talk to an old friend?” he pulled her around in a slow circle, dragging her through a halfhearted - singlehearted? - waltz as he spoke.

“Old enemy,” she shot back.

“Same difference.” He smiled.

“Well,” she plastered on a fake smile, hands still in his and still moving to a song only he could hear, “we’ve had our chat, can I head on now?”

“Leaving so soon?”

“You know how it is,” she replied breezily, “enemies to beat, planets to save, a universe to see.”

“Ah, yes. Your little pet project. How’s that working out for you?”

“Better than trying to take over it.”

He clucked his tongue, but offered no other response.

“So what now? Are you going to wipe my memory? Let me go?”

He laughed bitterly. “Nothing quite so dramatic love, I’m not you.” He suddenly became more serious. “I’m going to take you home.” She stilled, forcing him to stop too.

“What do you mean ‘home’?” a note of suspicion entered her voice. “The Tardis is right there, and we’re - “

“No. I mean home. How long has it been since you’ve been to Gallifrey?”

* * *

The warm breeze Arcadia was known for washed across her face, sweeping her hair back in a rough caress. She barely noticed it, too fixated on the ruins of the city, _her city_ smouldering in the distance. She had long since fell onto her knees, staring unblinkingly at the broken towers, so still and quiet, so opposed to how she acted around her pet humans.

The Master watched her from the doors of his Tardis, the dreadful silence between them worse than any fit of rage she could have flown into. He watched as she stirred, as she pushed herself to her feet, as she slowly picked her way across the rubble-strewn landscape.

He even watched as she pushed past him into the Tardis, into the homey facade he had lived in for the past three years. She stopped in front of him, dull eyed and looking like every single one of her years had caught up with her at once.

“How,” she croaked. “How did this happen?”

He smiled gently, eyes still guarded and distant. “They lied to us, Theta. Nothing they told us was even close to the truth of our history. The Timeless Child -”

Her head snapped up, hazel eyes flaring with that familiar fury. “You did this?” she hissed, her question more of a statement. “There were _billions_ of innocent people down there. Innocent families and _children_." She broke herself off with a choked off gasp as he laughed at her hypocrisy.

"And you didn't do the same? You didn't do _worse_ during the war? I did this because I had no other choice!" He leaned in close, voice dropping into a hushed whisper. "I did it because deep down, we aren't so different."

On any other occasion she would've scoffed, mocked him, maybe laughed in his face. But now she didn't have the strength to even try and deny it. Head bowed, her breath skittering across his neck, she let out a defeated sigh.

"Just take me back to my Tardis," she said. Then, raising her head fraction by fraction, she looked him in the eye, cold fury radiating off her in waves. "And then _never_ speak to me again, because I don't know what I'll do next time I see you."


End file.
